This morning I woke up with mastitis.
I've never breastfed, never had any kids -
but there it was, an angry red tit.
Did I say angry? It was fuming.
Look at me! it cried.
This is what I'd look like if you'd fulfilled your biological destiny!
But that's too much to ask, isn't it? it sneered.
What about all them brains you got?
Don't you think some kid deserves to inherit them?
And what about your husband?
That man's body is sheer perfection -
a monument of health.
You gonna let genes like that go to waste?
So I sat my breast down,
and explained to it the state of the world:
environmental crises
overpopulation
murderers, rapists, religious zealots
the national curriculum…
And besides which, I explained to my breast,
I'd be a terrible mother.
I'm really very selfish.
But the boob wasn't having any of it.
It continue to whine and pout
pulsing red streaks up my arm.
So I took it to the doctor and dosed it with antibiotics.
That shut it up.
I've never breastfed, never had any kids -
but there it was, an angry red tit.
Did I say angry? It was fuming.
Look at me! it cried.
This is what I'd look like if you'd fulfilled your biological destiny!
But that's too much to ask, isn't it? it sneered.
What about all them brains you got?
Don't you think some kid deserves to inherit them?
And what about your husband?
That man's body is sheer perfection -
a monument of health.
You gonna let genes like that go to waste?
So I sat my breast down,
and explained to it the state of the world:
environmental crises
overpopulation
murderers, rapists, religious zealots
the national curriculum…
And besides which, I explained to my breast,
I'd be a terrible mother.
I'm really very selfish.
But the boob wasn't having any of it.
It continue to whine and pout
pulsing red streaks up my arm.
So I took it to the doctor and dosed it with antibiotics.
That shut it up.